popular culture

This is one of my favorite images from the million and a half items held by the NYPL’s Picture Collection. Of course, I haven’t seen them all, and if you ask my co-workers they’ll tell you that I usually work with pictures about ships, airplanes, battles and weird animals like bats, insects and snakes. But this image really stirs me. Every few months I take it from its folder (labeled FAMILY LIFE – 1950s) and revisit it to remind me of the evocative power of art from another time. This picture stands for all the reasons we save it and other pictures for the public to use and enjoy.

It’s an illustration from an elementary school level reading book, and it shows a family getting ready to leave after a visit to relatives on a farm. It’s dated 1951, but still has a strong late-40’s feel, especially in the car with its small-windowed, round-fendered “roadster” look so unlike the plumper, chrome-adorned autos we associate with the Eisenhower era and which turned into the big-finned “land yachts” of the Kennedy years. Look how the artist has captured the behavior of the animals: the dog pulls back from the baby’s outthrust hand, while the cat leans into the ear-scratching given by the little girl. A chicken comes running to see what all the fuss is about. Father is opening the trunk of the car. He has his jacket and hat ready to go with those suit pants because, even though he may have gone around with his tie off and top button of his shirt undone, he’s going back the city now, and men have to dress for this. The young boy wears a straw hat as a memento, but his Mom has a hat and high heels. Grandpa (in overalls) and Grandma (in her apron) are bringing a farewell gift of fresh vegetables and eggs to take back to the suburbs.

Yes, it’s idealized, and even a little corny (no pun intended!), but it speaks to me in so many ways. I love the trim neatness of the farm buildings against the blue sky. I feel the undertones of modest prosperity and the strength of family ties. I’m reminded that there’s a whole country beyond the borders of New York City, with real people whose work feeds us all, and whom we often dismiss from our lofty urban perch. It all makes me try to imagine the classrooms where this book would have been used. What did the kids there do after school? Where did their parents work, and what did they watch on TV? It’s almost too clean and perfect, and all the faces are white.

It’s very much a product of its era, and I know this. But it still suggests how America wanted to see itself at the time it was made. To me, it’s as evocative of its era as anything by a Greek black-figure vase painter, Breugel or David Hockney. It’s an America I just missed seeing, and perhaps that’s why it appeals to me so strongly.

Bold hussies would get their comeuppance, predicted the morally offended critics of a society growing too racy for comfort. How dare they talk about a “New Woman,” ready to take part in every aspect of society? Such ideas were on a par with the fashion for progress in all things technological and scientific. Social change had come and left its mark. The outward signs of this, however, were still not apparent to all. Indeed, many considered the 1890s a time of uncertainty.

What a short stretch of time before bathing can become swimming! The social mores that prevent women from disrobing or showing their bodies will slowly be overcome by the end of the 1880s. Since the Enlightenment, women were permitted to wear flowing, concealing robes if they wanted to take a dip in the sea, or even a spa pool. The concept of a bathing suit was far from what we know today. In the 1880s, a woman might wear a slightly more relaxed form of dress, but dressed she remained.

Contrast such clothing with the adoption of a swimming costume. This was a special garment, still concerned with concealment, but now more ‘sporting” in nature. Looking at the image above, dated July 1892, we see the future opening up. If you want to pursue information on the history of swim wear, using the subject heading Bathing Suits when searching the Library’s catalog.

Because I’m going to a funeral at the end of this week, I thought I’d take a look at the nineteenth century’s special affection for mourning dress. Black mourning survived over the centuries in various forms. It took the mid-nineteenth century, however, to give the fashion for mourning an added fillip. The Victorian era is awash with ornaments and details affiliated with mourning, from jet and onyx jewelry to lacy veils and black tippets.

Women, of course, carried the particular burden of grief. Their physical appearance was rendered according to the dictates of society: deepest black for a full year when glossy materials were forbidden, like furs, velvet and satin, and then permission to go to half-mourning, to add dull colors—like lavender or gray—before a slow return to original dress. Widows were encouraged in the dowager look, aided by that most familiar of examples perched on the English throne. Black lent dignity to the rituals of grief. Yet, did it ever cross a woman’s mind, that her mourning dress isolated her further? That, here, through the vagaries of fashion, was a western way to emulate the Hindu practice of suttee?

By the mid-1870s, there were groups speaking out against the extremes of mourning wear for women. The adoption of morning clothes put an economic squeeze on poor and lower middle class families. However, the social regulations governing mourning dress didn’t really begin to relax until the 1890s. Many critics of the era consider that mourning dress was a form of conspicuous consumption, symbolic of the pervasive atmosphere of gentility and conformity. Do you agree?

Fashion held an uneasy place in the war years of the North-South conflict in America. The Union and Confederate armies, uninterested in flashy uniforms, chose practical wear, while women remained ensconced in thick petticoats and triangular-shaped gowns. Some fashion textbooks call this the “crinoline period”. Hoops, or the cage crinoline, made women’s dresses billow as they did, and also made mobility more problematic.

Since the North controlled ports and shipping, and therefore received whatever fashion plate publishing there was, women in the South had a harder time keeping up with the modes. Southern ingenuity in refurbishing clothes made skirts and blouses more popular, and reintroduced tight sleeves that had been cut down from the wide sleeves of an earlier fashion cycle.

The beneficial effects of the sewing machine were apparent by the early 1860s. In fact, the number of sewing machines available doubled between 1860 and 1865. Almost all dresses were partly machine-sewn, although they continued to be finished by hand right up to the end of the century. Ready-to-wear developed at a slow pace for women, largely because the fashionable styles that originated after 1860 made achieving a correct fit difficult.

Men were luckier, and a ready-to-wear trade for their garments gained ground after the 1840s.

Historical postcards are among the many images that the Library’s Digital Gallery collects. And I’ve found a gold mine of Easter Bunny cards. How easily does this secular holiday figure fit into our pop culture – you can see just by the types of scenes depicted on these cards. Fertility is one obvious clue to the pagan origins of the Easter Bunny, since rabbits generally have large litters. But why are these furry mammals hauling around chicken eggs? Another fertility symbol, a harbinger of new life. The use of a rabbit or hare for an Easter symbol may have started in Germany. Certainly, the Germans were the first people to make a sweet Easter Bunny, starting with pastry and sugar before moving on to chocolate. The Easter Bunny made it to America courtesy of Pennsylvania Dutch children who sang the praises of the “Oschter Haws” and the colored eggs he’d leave behind for lucky people to find. The next step was the creation of Easter baskets to hold goodies…

Children’s stories abound about the doings of the Easter Bunny. Most of them feature his giving out of eggs. Most valuable of all Easter eggs are the fabulous creations of Faberge, made for the ill-fated last Russian Czar and his family. Should you encounter an Easter Bunny this weekend, be sure to show some respect. After all, I can tell you personally that there’s nothing worse than disapproving rabbits.

p.s. My rabbits, Beau and Jack, wish everyone a good Rabbit Day. Should any of you feel a desire to learn more about rabbits as companion animals, check out the House Rabbit Society.

At this point, I find myself taking another strategic break. We’re a little over one-third of the way through the nineteenth century. A holiday is coming up, undeniably the most important event of the Christian calendar. But it’s not religion I want to talk about. No, there’s a secular element to this holiday that weighs greatly with me. You see, I am a rabbit owner, and the Easter Bunny lives with me 24/7.

Popular culture has a way of imprinting itself on us. All my life, I’ve looked forward to Easter because of the delight its furry patron creates. How many of you have painted Easter eggs, put together or received an Easter basket replete with phony paper grass, or, best of all, gone on an Easter egg hunt? So important is this event, that the White House for years has sponsored an Easter Egg hunt on its East Lawn.

I got my first pet bunny from Woolworth’s at the age of nine. My mother, who’d raised rabbits for meat as a child during the World War II years, had an offhand attitude, “Oh well, if it doesn’t work out, we can always eat it.” Sure. That rabbit was my best friend and companion for eight years. Minnie Bunny had an endearing habit of jumping up on my bed in the afternoon to watch her favorite television show. As soon as it was over, she’d jump down and go off on her rabbity business.  read more »

The new era of Victorianism affected masculine dress as well. Whether in Europe or America, men found themselves more mistrustful of dandyism. This isn’t to say that dandies didn’t continue to emerge from time to time, often in artistic circles, but the general air was one of cynicism. The illustrations I’ve used for this post are indicative of what two American men from different cultures would wear in the 1830s.

An even greater impulse for change would affect men’s clothing. Scholars still argue today over the reasons for this change. One theory calls the decisions ahead “The Great Masculine Renunciation.” Most literature from this time period suggests that gender identity was in flux, although the man on the street would hotly deny that this was so.
 
 

In France, a new dandy supplanted previous notions of this masculine mode. Count Alfred d’Orsay was a sensation in London and Paris of the 1820s and 30s. His great physical beauty, dandified dress, and elegant manners had men and women stopping in the streets to stare after him. His private life—he came from an impoverished branch of French aristocracy—proved scandalous when he was “adopted” by a wealthy English Earl and his wife, and no one was exactly sure whose boyfriend he was.

The Count’s dandyism was less restrained than Brummell’s. He favored velvets and coats cut with a dash. Like many members of the cult of celebrity, however, his popularity faded before he was ready to admit this was so. While d’Orsay epitomizes the dandy as popular idol, his fall shows just how ambivalent men felt about dandyism. Young boys across France emulated his modishness, but by the end of the 1830s masculine fashion had moved on.

Dandies were viewed with a little more skepticism across the Atlantic. The upheaval in Europe created by Napoleon’s rise and fall brought a steady stream of tailors and would-be dandies to America’s east coast cities. Yet in keeping with a country with more than its fair share of rough edges, the niceties of modish dress were something to regard with suspicion. Nor did it help that the largest showing of dandies regularly turned up in the U.S. Congress.

The ambivalent attitude of men in the New World toward Old World dressing didn’t stop them from pursuing similar fashionable looks. Despite a recent war, the ties between Bond Street and Wall Street remained. American cynicism, however, would be an important ingredient in the changes of the century ahead.

The New York Public Library held an exhibition in 2004 that illuminated the Library’s rich holdings of the Napoleonic Era; entitled “Decoration In the Age of Napoleon: Empire Elegance Versus Regency Refinement,” it showed the cultural rivalry between the two nations, including the area of fashion. An online bibliography to the Empire and Regency styles is available on the Library’s website.

In fact, the French had held the fashion edge since the time of Louis XIV. The English might have a great deal of national pride, but when French fashions arrived from across the Channel, they were the first to take them up. The nineteenth century would change this equation, however, as English tailoring became the norm for European and American gentlemen. Nevertheless, the Empire Style in decoration and dress fascinated everyone for the period of its creation (1800 – 1814), and lingered well past those dates. Women’s dress, marked by high waistlines and body-hugging silhouettes, survived into the 1820s. The story of fashion history for this period shows a willingness for bodies—or body outlines—to be revealed. Soon, this love of physical display would go underground for the rest of the century.

The popularity of the Empire Style echoes down the years. Some of its elegance transferred into the Art Deco mode, also affected by popular culture and the cult of personality. What a difference between the lives of the two Josephines: Bonaparte and Baker! But both had the ability to bewitch. Do we have anybody like them today? I wonder…

p.s. Britney and Beyoncé don’t count!!!

All good writers of novels or lively nonfiction know that it’s crucial to pause their story at a certain point. Perhaps this can apply to the blogger, too. What have we learned so far in examining the path of Western fashion from antiquity to the nineteenth century? We know that clothing was modified for important class distinctions, that masculine bodies were celebrated while feminine bodies had to be concealed beneath numerous draperies, and men were given greater leeway with fashion. We’ve seen that rulers and their nobles protected the use of fine fashions as their prerogative, enacting sumptuary laws when necessary to enforce that privilege, despite those laws being broken again and again. Fashion could be used for social mobility, ideological identity, and social conformity. Fashion could even signal social control or a break with convention.

I never intended to impose a long-winded costume history lesson on you readers. What I want to get across is the fact that as we grow closer to our modern era, fashion changes in several important respects. Fashion trends grow closer together, signaling quicker changes in popular culture. Men settle on a unified look, while women seek variety in a multiplicity of forms. Clothes now develop their own language. I want to resume my story of fashion by looking more closely at the nineteenth century when everything changed. And most of all, let’s have fun! When we start scrutinizing what happened to clothing in the 1800s, our contemporary choices look better and better.

Are we going somewhere? Yes. All my efforts to explore the rise of modern clothing and fashion in last year’s posts will be brought home by the discoveries we make in the months ahead. As this excellent title in the Library collection suggests, we need to learn more about Dress, adornment, and the social order so that we may understand our own craving for fashion better. We also need to see exactly what kinds of dress we freed ourselves from in order to become what we are now. And what we are now can be epitomized by the most recent cover of Vogue featuring our lovely First Lady. And, like any hopeful blogger, I’d love to draw reactions out of you as I proceed with this new story…

p.s. Happy Saint Valentine’s Day! I’m keeping an eye on New York Fashion Week, where the parties and glitz have been toned down, along with expectations.

“Fashion is an odd jumble of contradictions, of sympathies and antipathies.”
----William Hazlitt (1778 – 1830)

The nineteenth century is when everything changes. Fashions accelerate along with the social, political, intellectual, and technological advances of each decade. Issues related to taste and aesthetics become more apparent. This is the century when men’s clothes change to take on the appearance we know today. The tailored man’s suit became the great social leveler, permitting the common man and the gentleman to share the same form of dress. The man’s suit exhibited staying power and authority, aided by the rapid development of modern nationalism. Men wore dark garments that were universally recognizable and devoid of any distracting ostentation.

The same is not true for women’s wear, however. They were given an almost dizzying array of alterations in gown style, silhouette, padding and ornamentation with each passing decade of the nineteenth century. In fact, by mid-to-late-century, the sexes exchange fashion leadership roles: men with their democratic dress take a back seat to the haute couture dreams of the fair sex. Fashion belonged to women more than ever before in the history of clothing and dress. And yet the numerous details that defined and complicated feminine dress have a surprisingly disturbing social meaning…

“Fashion as we know it in the West, is not and never was a universal condition of dress. It is a European product and is not nearly as old as European Civilization.”
----Quentin Bell (1910-1996)

The Bible says that when Adam and Eve sinned, they were forced to cover their nakedness. The clothed body certainly became an essential part of the human condition. What people did with their clothing, however, was derived from diverse motivations. Geography, climate, and a growing list of social impulses triggered basic decisions about garments. The ancient Egyptians learned that fine unbleached linen wore well in their desert environment while the indigenous people of the upper North American continent relied on animal skins for necessary protection against the elements. Class distinctions sprang up in all early societies, regardless of their geographical location, further dictating who would wear what.

Since our educational system in the twentieth and twenty-first century remains largely based on Western civilization, I feel compelled to look there first. This doesn’t mean that non-Western cultures haven’t contributed greatly to clothing and adornment. With my theme of fashion as a social force in mind, I’m going to first review dress across the centuries (with an emphasis on Western dress, and some selective diversions) and what was important about the way people wore their clothes. After this review, a new path for investigation will emerge…

It’s useful to know what I always discuss with my Costume and Fashion History classes: the correct subject headings for searching Library holdings are Costume and Clothing and Dress. Fashion is a workable heading, but Fashion Design will garner fewer results than you might expect.

Ah, the new year! What lies ahead for us? 2008 produced many surprises on the economic front, a youthful, energized President-elect, and a world-weary sense that we need to learn from our mistakes. The past half-dozen years have been one long shopping frenzy, but now the coins have left our collective pockets, along with our 401[k]s. While the flames smolder and smoke from our bank statements and credit cards, it’s time to review how we got to this point. As always, fashion as a social force can be blamed in part. We were led to believe that everything was ours for the asking—or so our society seemed to promise.

Why does fashion, that ever powerful force, play so great a role in our lives? The answer isn’t as straightforward as we’d like. While there’s still much to learn from the adage everything old is new again, the stories of when, how, and why we made changes in our mode of dressing are also part of the history of humanity. Even colors play a role. In the Middle Ages, prostitutes wore red gowns and pious men swathed themselves in black. Nowadays, red is the color of allure and power, while black has acquired a multiplicity of meanings. When we look back at the reasons for these developments, they take on an even richer context when fashion as a social force is factored in.

This means that I’ll be leaving the 1920s and 1930s and taking us anywhere and everywhere for a while, with meaningful stories from the history of clothing—and fashion—as a theme for my post musings. At some points, I may seem like Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. But never fear! Like so many storytellers, I’m taking us somewhere in the end. As one American Indian author recently said when writing about Native life today, “our stories are all we have.” Well, I think that statement goes for the human condition as well…

Thanks for reading my posts on modernity and fashion,
Letting me exercise my long-running Art Deco passion.
While the exhibition’s been given an extended stay,*
To other topics I really should stray.
What subjects shall I choose to beguile your time?
And is it necessary that they all should rhyme?
For fashion is a most powerful force,
Too important to simply let it take its course.

The truth, dear readers, is a question to you—
What would you most want me to do?
In the year ahead since the Art Deco motif is spent,
On what new journeys should we be sent?
It’s been a pleasure to wander afield
To see what secrets fashion can yield.
Shall I head back into the past for wonders to plumb,
Or is the retrospective view simply too dumb?
Since past and present have a way of intertwining,
I’d better get started, and quit all this whining!

* “Art Deco Design: Rhythm and Verve” has been extended to May 22, 2009. If you haven’t seen it yet, come to the Wachenheim Gallery of the Central Building at 42nd Street, first floor. I’m starting work on an online version, coming soon in the months ahead…

"In the absence of the sacred, nothing is sacred. Everything is for sale."
-Oren Lyons (Onondaga) 1992

If I can complain about Thanksgiving as a holiday, why not Christmas? My beef is with the pervasive present-giving expectations that drive our economic ship of state. While Christmas was originally a religious holiday, a visitor arriving from another planet would be forgiven if he/she/it missed this fact entirely. The current reality is that the Victorian-tradition fir tree, laden with ornaments and lights and attendant wrapped gifts underneath, has overtaken all other symbolic meanings for the day. Have you noticed as I have over the last five years, that most reporting on the Christmas holiday period revolves around how well the stores are doing with seasonal sales? And then there was the horror this year on Black Friday when crazed shoppers pushed their way into a Long Island Wal-Mart, leaving a store clerk dead in their wake…

The Library provides historical context for Christmas Past and Christmas Present, in its Digital Gallery holdings and related texts. The economic imperatives of Christmas unwrapped: consumerism, Christ, and culture are available for perusal, along with more conventional stories about the making of the modern Christmas. CATNYP has more than 353 entries for Christmas and its four related, narrower subject terms: Christmas service; Epiphany season; Jesus Christ Nativity; and Santa Claus. Nowadays, Santa Claus trumps everything else in the big media picture. Bring on those gifts, Santa, and boy they’d better be good value—reflecting all those deep cuts in prices consumers have been promised.

If you want to dust off your nostalgia, try looking at something like Sharing Christmas. Maybe the problem lies in the fact that our society tries too hard to push the concept that everything old can be new again when it comes to holiday celebrations. Haven’t we all seen the myriad newsstand magazines that revive the “make your home festive” articles? C’mon, who really has time for that? But out they come every year. And don’t get me started about the secular “holiday season versus Christmas” name-calling controversy. I think I’ll go put on my coat and walk up to Rockefeller Center to see the tree. After all, that poor 72-foot-tall fir is not to blame for what humans choose to mess up.

p.s. And, yes, I will feel much better after I see it, lights and all. Why, it might make me want to go shopping. Hmm… Saks is right across the street…

“Nobody told me there’d be days like these,
Strange days indeed,
Most peculiar, Mama!”
---- John Lennon Nobody Told Me (1984)

Can we find any lessons about the 1930s, a time of global economic depression that ended in a world war, to inform us about our own painfully reminiscent current situation? First of all, despite the woes of that earlier period, people were just as grounded in thinking about fashion as we are now. Many people point to the escapism of the big Hollywood movies of the 30s and their celebration of unending glamour. Even Coco Chanel led the way in the early years of the 30s by popularizing less expensive cotton as a fashion fabric, and slashing the prices on her own designs. Rayon and nylon came into their own in this decade.

While women seemed to be draped in more fabric than ever, short sleeves and backless dresses became commonplace. The luxury of fur was another popular preference at this time, undoubtedly helped by Hollywood’s movie stars. Subdued colors also became an established feature, something that seems appropriate for a decade described by one art historian as “the age of anxiety.” Secondly, the exaggerations of the 20s were gone now – flat-chested boyishness replaced by real bosoms and padded shoulders. Curves were back in fashion. And the retail clothing industry made great strides in providing consumers with vital accessories—fashionable odds and ends that helped make an outfit look different and last longer (just like this September’s Vogue issue suggested). If you want a good visual survey of this decade’s accomplishments, look no further than Maria Costantino’s picture book, Fashions of a Decade: the 1930s.

I predict that later next year, perhaps by the time of the fall fashion shows, fashion design will do some sort of “acting out” or turn to reactive innovations. Right now, the industry is playing it safe with basics and classics. The influence for a little change may not come from Hollywood films as it did in the 30s—except maybe from indie flicks—but from some other popular culture impetus. You heard it here first!

“Carelessness in dressing is moral suicide.”
---Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)

“Carelessness in workplace dressing is economic suicide.”
---Paula A. Baxter, 2008

The most significant social trend with implications for fashion in the Art Deco era, however, was the steady increase of women in the workplace. I remember my grandmother telling me how she was one of the first women to work in the 1930s in her upstate New York hometown, taking a secretarial job at Elmira College. She often recounted (with more than a little personal glee) how she was the object of envy and amazement. I also recall her saying one time that dressing properly for the job was a bit of a challenge. She wasn’t a natural seamstress (like her granddaughter), so she made a bus trip or two down to the Big City.

Fortunately, the growing retail clothing industry was hard at work in the 20s and 30s, building demand for readymade garments. The economic reality, however, for a vast number of women was that they needed to make their own clothes. Sewing patterns came into their own in this era, as the illustration above for Butterick shows. And these patterns and their ads in magazines are physical evidence of the recognition that women were taking jobs and needed to dress accordingly. The idea of clothing selection motives has come in for some recent study. Remember the subject heading Fashion—Psychological aspects when doing research. Women in that era were also drawing their own conclusions about the sociology of their dress.

p.s. When I get back from D.C., I need to head over to The Museum at FIT for their exhibition which is just opening, entitled “Seduction.” Sounds good!

Well, Santa pulled into Herald Square at the conclusion of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. This is the popular culture signal for the traditional Christmas shopping season to begin. What will it be like this year, with all the media worries about shoppers keeping their wallets firmly closed?

In the meantime, one of the best developments in the academic study of clothing and dress is the consideration given to the “culture of fashion.” One study, with the same title, addresses changes in clothing through the distinguishing social factors of the time period. The author sees the early twentieth century as a critical period for the transformation of everyday clothing. I’ve often wondered, however, why men chose to solidify the unity of their appearance through suits, while women did nothing equivalent? But, then, maybe I have the whole thing wrong. The 20s and 30s were responsible for a particular “look” to develop. Dresses and skirts did modify to occupy certain basic shapes. Pants came into the picture a little later. The Culture of Fashion makes one point that helps me see things a little more clearly: if you look past the decade approach to style changes, there is a growing democratization in women’s dress between 1920 and 1990.

The haute couture element can also be factored in. In The Golden Age of Style, changing silhouettes, hemlines, and decorative details are still subordinate to the growing uniformity of the feminine look. Sometimes, it takes a very basic picture book, aimed at young adults, to bring us back to reality. Fashions of a Decade: the 1920s, worth a trek down to SIBL, balances a portrait of the decade that shows how technological trends, increased manufacturing, and even fads (like those “talkies” introduced in 1927), influenced daily dress. Another recent reference book, Historical Dictionary of the Fashion Industry, can also be found at SIBL.

p.s. I’m posting early this week since I’m going to a conference in Washington D.C. The title of this event is “Images of the American Indian, 1600-2000.” More about this in the new year…